Geoff Waite: Nietzsche’s Corps/e: Aesthetics, Politics, Prophecy, or, the Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday Life (1996)

“Appearing in 1996 between two historical touchstones—the alleged end of communism and the 100th anniversary of Nietzsche’s death—this book offers a provocative hypothesis about the philosopher’s afterlife and the fate of leftist thought and culture. At issue is the relation of the dead Nietzsche (corpse) and his written work (corpus) to subsequent living Nietzscheanism across the political spectrum, but primarily among a leftist corps that has been programmed and manipulated by concealed dimensions of the philosopher’s thought. If anyone is responsible for what Geoff Waite maintains is the illusory death of communism, it is Nietzsche, the man and concept.

Waite advances his argument by bringing Marxist—especially Gramscian and Althusserian—theories to bear on the concept of Nietzsche/anism. But he also goes beyond ideological convictions to explore the vast Nietzschean influence that proliferates throughout the marketplace of contemporary philosophy, political and literary theory, and cultural and technocultural criticism. In light of a philological reconstruction of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished texts, Nietzsche’s Corps/e shuttles between philosophy and everyday popular culture and shows them to be equally significant in their having been influenced by Nietzsche—in however distorted a form and in a way that compromises all of our best interests.

Controversial in its “decelebration” of Nietzsche, this remarkable study asks whether the postcontemporary age already upon us will continue to be dominated and oriented by the haunting spectre of Nietzsche’s corps/e. Philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and those interested in western Marxism, popular culture, Friedrich Nietzsche, and the intersection of French and German thought will find this book both appealing and challenging.”

Publisher Duke University Press, 1996
ISBN 0822317192, 9780822317197
xii+564 pages

Review: Douglas Kellner (Illuminations, (2)), Ricardo Dominguez (Thing, 1996), Carl Pletsch and James A. Winders (Modernism/modernity, 1998), Tracy B. Strong (New Nietzsche Studies, 1998), Paul Bishop (Modern Language Rev, 1999), Richard E. Joines (Rethinking Marxism, 2001, (2)).

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See also Pierre Klossowski’s Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle (1969–)

Sven-Olov Wallenstein: Nihilism, Art, and Technology (2010)

Beginning in an analysis of three paradigmatic instances of the encounter between art and technology in modernism—the invention of photography, the step beyond art in Futurism and Constructivism, and the interpretation of technology in debates on architectural theory in the 1920s and ’30s—this book analyzes three philosophical responses to the question of nihilism—those of Walter Benjamin, Ernst Jünger, and Martin Heidegger—all of which are characterized by an avant-garde sensibility that looks to art as a way to counter the crisis of modernity.

These responses are then brought to bear on the work of the architect Mies van der Rohe, whose “silence”—understood as a withdrawal of language, sense, and aesthetic perception—is analyzed as a key problem in the interpretation of the legacy of modernism. From this, a different understanding of nihilism, art, and technology emerges. These concepts form a field of constant modulation, which implies that the foundations of critical theory must be subjected to a historical analysis that acknowledges them as ongoing processes of construction, and that also accounts for the capacity of technologies and artistic practices to intervene in the formation of philosophical concepts.


Originally presented as a compilation thesis in theoretical philosophy, the work was published as a book by Axl Books in 2011.

Doctoral Thesis
Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University, 2010
ISBN 9789174470734
92 pages

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Annet Dekker (ed.): Speculative Scenarios, or What Will Happen to Digital Art in the (Near) Future? (2013)

There is a growing understanding of the use of technological tools for dissemination or mediation in the museum, but artistic experiences that are facilitated by new technologies are less familiar. Whereas the artworks’ presentation equipment becomes obsolete and software updates change settings and data feeds that are used in artworks, the language and theory relating to these works is still being formulated. To better produce, present and preserve digital works, an understanding of their history and the material is required to undertake any in-depth inquiry into the subject.

In an attempt to fill some gaps the authors in this publication discuss digital aesthetics, the notion of the archive and the function of social memory. These essays and interviews are punctuated by three future scenarios in which the authors speculate on the role and function of digital arts, artists and art organisations.

The book is a sequel to Archive2020 – Sustainable Archiving of Born-Digital Cultural Content, edited by Annet Dekker in 2010.

With contributions by Christiane Berndes (Van Abbemuseum), Sarah Cook (CRUMB), Annet Dekker (aaaan.net), Sandra Fauconnier (Museum Boijmans van Beuningen), Olga Goriunova (University of Warwick), Jussi Parikka (University of Southampton), Christiane Paul (Whitney Museum), Richard Rinehart (Samek Art Gallery), Edward Shanken (DXARTS University of Washington), Jill Sterrett (SFMOMA), Nina Wenhart (independent researcher), Layna White (SFMOMA).

Publisher Baltan Laboratories, Eindhoven, August 2013
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
144 pages

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